Undeception

Science is just a buddy system of evolutionists who routinely turn a blind eye to methodological rigor in order to make sure evolution looks credible. Peer review’s a sham, meant to give the predetermined results a little added credibility. Right?

Remember the story a couple years ago about how a couple scientists claimed they were able to extract some protein residue from the femur of a 68 million year old Tyrannosaurus Rex? The article published in Science made the phenomenal-if-true claim that the peptides in the T. rex were startlingly similar to those of a modern chicken, which would appear to demonstrate the accuracy of long-held postulations about the evolutionary relationship between saurischian dinosaurs and birds.

But as Carl Sagan noted, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Wired Magazine chronicles the story of how the 2007 claim that astounded the scientific community with its audacity was put through the ringer and consequently rejected by scads of the most qualified experts, and how the scientists behind the original claim were forced to go back, retest, and republish. The results of the team’s latest study are quite interesting.

This whole story highlights the fallacy put forth with astounding regularity by evolution-deniers that mainstream science is not rigorous or honest about the data, but is made up of agenda-driven scientists who simply front-load all their claims in favor of evolution.

Note: if you can’t force yourself to read on through the technical language in this article, maybe you should think twice before using your own non-specialist expertise to debunk evolution.

Cliff Martin’s thought-provoking and thought-soliciting post, Two Categories of Beliefs/Opinions, asks the question,

Which type of belief/opinion is the more easily dislodged? that is, from which type of opinion is a person more easily persuaded to accept an alternate view? Support your answer.
A) Chosen beliefs/opinions
B) Evidence-based beliefs/opinions

Cliff was asking this specifically in reference to the refusal of many Christians to accept evolution as a valid explanation of the scientific evidence.  As may be obvious from earlier posts of my own (such as “Why creationists are creationists“), I agreed with Cliff’s conclusion that type B (evidence-based) beliefs are easier to dislodge than those adopted for other reasons, and supported my answer in the comments of his post. But it is cloudier than this simple question makes it appear: it’s not that creationists have nothing but opinions and evolutionists have all the evidence. Rather, the creationists’ most trusted evidence is derivative from their less evidentiary opinions on how the Bible’s account of creation must be read.  I believe they have chosen a tenet based upon non-scientific (which isn’t necessarily to say invalid) evidence that evolution contradicts central aspects of their theology, which for type A reasons they refuse to allow to be modified for type B reasons.

I was directed this morning to an article from the International Journal of Organic Evolution, published in 2007, that corroborates Cliff’s informal observation in an academic fashion. Here is the abstract:

Poor public perceptions and understanding of evolution are not unique to the developed and more industrialized nations of the world. International resistance to the science of evolutionary biology appears to be driven by both proponents of intelligent design and perceived incompatibilities between evolution and a diversity of religious faiths. We assessed the success of a first-year evolution course at the University of Cape Town and discovered no statistically significant change in the views of students before the evolution course and thereafter, for questions that challenged religious ideologies about creation, biodiversity, and intelligent design. Given that students only appreciably changed their views when presented with “facts,” we suggest that teaching approaches that focus on providing examples of experimental evolutionary studies, and a strong emphasis on the scientific method of inquiry, are likely to achieve greater success. This study also reiterates the importance of engaging with students’ prior conceptions, and makes suggestions for improving an understanding and appreciation of evolutionary biology in countries such as South Africa with an inadequate secondary science education system, and a dire lack of public engagement with issues in science.

Anusuya Chinsamy and Éva

Plagányi

Volume 62, Issue 1, pp. 248-254

In the full article, they present evidence for the relative invulnerability of “religious ideologies” (type A beliefs) to scientific challenges compared to the efficacy of teaching scientific evidence (type B beliefs) for evolution.

When I posted the poll, “Why do Christian scientists often profess belief in human evolution?”, originally under this post and since then in my sidebar, I resolved that I would write a follow-up after a certain amount of time if any interesting results came out it. Six months and 100 votes later, this is that post. [Note: the two extra votes were both for Option 1.]

Here are the results:

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An understandably high number of evolution supporters have made their way to my blog and voted for Option 1. The more interesting results come from the dissenters. So here are my comments on the responses of the evolution skeptics.

Option 4: Other [4 votes]

I was hoping those who voted for this would contribute some helpful comments nuancing some of my options. I was afraid it would become a catch-all of “I don’t want to vote for the others, regardless of how close any of them really come to it,” and unfortunately, my fears proved well-founded. Of the two Option 4 voters who did comment, neither actually presented an alternative, “an option should have been…” explanation.

Option 1: Because they are convinced by the evidence. [? votes]
Unstated subheading: “They do not feel they can deny the scientific evidence, even over possible theological objections.”  A not especially unbalanced view of science and theology but a conviction that scientific evidence overwhelms creationist theology.

Of course, it’s possible that no creationists voted for this option at all. If so, the idea that only 16 creationists in six months voted would imply that creationists didn’t like my poll and boycotted it, despite a reasonable spread of options and the sure bet of Option 4, “Other”. But under the supposition that more than sixteen creationists voted in the poll in the six months it’s been in my sidebar, we would have to conclude that at least one of them voted for Option 1.  For all I know, 43 (half of the 86) votes for Option 1 were from fair-minded creationists.

Now, if you voted for Option 1 under the interpretation, “They believe it because of misleading scientific evidence,” you are in effect admitting that enough scientific evidence appears to support evolutionary theory that this would explain the majority of Christians who accept evolution as the best explanation for the evidence. But notice what that implies: the science is in favor of evolutionary theory and against special creation. How someone could believe that and still maintain belief in special creation is beyond me unless 1) they consider most Christian scientists incompetent and incapable of accurately analyzing the scientific data or 2) they believe that God planted evidence to cover His tracks and hide His involvement from all but the Elect.  Can anyone come up with another analysis?

Option 2: They are immature believers, not grounded in their faith. [2 votes]
Unstated subheading: “If they knew more about the Christian faith, they’d reject what scientific evidence they think they found and look for creationist-friendly scientific evidence.” A high emphasis on science, without requisite attention to theology.

This was my own position before I accepted evolution: the evidence for evolution appeared sound enough to convince many Christians young or shallow in their faith who were unaware of the need to check out the contrary evidence that supported the Bible. There were only two people who voted for this, which is the more remarkable given the alternative for which most of the Christian creationists apparently voted. And which option was that?

Option 3: They are compromisers, searing their consciences with what they know is a lie because they are afraid to do otherwise (their careers, reputations, etc.). [10 votes]
Unstated subheading: “They are fully of the belief that evolution is bad science and contradicts traditional Christian theology, but are too weaselly to admit it.”  Low regard for both science and theology, high regard for self-interest.

I purposely phrased this option in a frank manner so as to give creationists a chance of distancing themselves from such outrageous hubris. It’s actually the sentiment I hear most often, and so I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am that 10 out of the 16 verifiable creationists who voted on my poll chose this option; even factoring in 4 creationist votes for Option 1, that’s half of the creationist respondents who chose this option over a more modest and fair .

Hearing this mentality over and over again was one of the first things that made me seriously question my own creationism. It was also part of the inspiration for my post, “Why creationists are creationists”. Of all the options, this was the least charitable to the majority of believing scientists working in the field. Your own interpretation of the Bible and ad hoc, makeshift science as promulgated largely by non-specialists is so unchallengeable that your Christian brothers and sistersalmost have to be consciously living a lie? This is so infuriatingly smug, arrogant, and spiteful that words almost fail me. Almost.

When I say that you creationists are creationists because you think you’ve got to be in order for your interpretation of the Bible to hold, this is not an indictment on your character, but on your philosophy. Is it so hard for you to be civil enough to entertain the notion that we are evolutionists because we think we’ve got to be in order to make sense of what the scientific disciplines are telling us?

I am not saying, as is often alleged, that Christians who accept evolutionary theory decide to choose science over the Bible. It’s not that scientists trust science and theologians trust the Bible. I’m saying something radically different: we trust the best scientists’ interpretation of scientific facts over certain theologians’ interpretation of the Bible, particularly theologians who don’t take science seriously enough when interpreting. We don’t confuse the Bible itself with the creationists’ interpretation of the Bible, not least because the latter does not consistently take into account scientific observation. By “consistently”, I refer to the fact that even most creationists interpret Joshua’s sun standing still as phenomenological language because of the relatively recent scientific observation that this does not make sense literally. In short, we reject the notion that observation, including scientific observation, should have no appreciable bearing on our deciding what the Bible is telling us.

It is that sort of antagonism toward evolutionary theory that is relied upon to keep young Christians on the reservation. Apparently my parents and teachers at church didn’t try hard enough to brainwash me into believing that only compromising, backslidden, Satan-blinded sellouts could believe what science says about anything other than physics, chemistry, and certain “safe” ideas in biology, geology, and astronomy. Bully for them.

Mike Beidler pointed me to an article entitled “The Bible as Human Literature” that culminates in the provocative question, “If Jesus is really raised from the dead, what do we lose if we consider the Bible as only human literature?” This is something I’ve been asking for quite a while, but I’ve not read any version of these thoughts written quite so well as in Alex McManus’s outstanding post. Please read it! Encountering writing that good and thinking that clear is exactly why I’ve tapered off on my own production on this blog of late.
I’d like to make some comments about this little excerpt.

God did not write the Bible.

Humans wrote the Bible.

Thus the Bible is not God’s written word if by that we mean that God wrote it.

The Bible is human literature and humans are the authors. Just to be clear, the Bible is not co-authored by God and humans either. The Bible is only (by which I mean that the Bible is not divine) human literature.

I tentatively made similar claims in my longwinded (and somewhat outdated) series on bibliology and hermeneutics. But more and more, I’ve decided that McManus’s comment about “only human” literature is in the right direction. At least in the sense that McManus presents it: as I have said before, the divine is the subject of the Bible, not the substance, so the degree to which it accurately represents the divine depends on how theologically accurate it is. There is, without doubt, absolute truth contained in the Bible. The question comes in about whether that truth is revealed as the intent of the passages in which it is contained or whether it is almost incidental, much in the way that a good photographer finds good subjects not because sunrises, laughing children, etc. are posing for him, but because he knows where to look and is prepared to take the shots when the opportunity arises.

I’ve been reading Evolutionary Creation by Denis Lamoureux, the fullest treatment of a Christian approach to evolution that I am aware of (I highly recommend it). Lamoureux’s central contention in the early chapters is that the Bible, and particularly the OT, was never intended to mirror the details of historical and scientific reality perfectly (what he helpfully refers to as “historical” and “scientific concord”), but were accommodations of ancient history and science to the original audience for a greater purpose. Here again, this is something I argued for in the above mentioned series. Crucially, he insists that the Bible was intended to be theologically concordant. For Lamoureux, Scripture was intended to reveal certain infallible truths, which he calls “Messages of Faith”, and that they are merely wrapped in ancient science and history so that they would be understood by their original audience. And once more, I argued this as well. But even when I stated these propositions, something didn’t sit well with me: one of my greatest expectations in reading Evolutionary Creation (EC) was to gain a better understanding of how to go about finding those divine revelations and separate them from the errant notions the Hebrews had even about God and His ways.

Instead, the problem became even more stark when I read EC. The fact is, sometimes what might otherwise appear as a divinely inspired message is noted to be incorrect, or incomplete at best (e.g. the three theodicies mentioned in EC: Genesis 3, Job, and Jesus, all of which Lamoureux counts as incomplete). Even worse, it’s next to impossible to tell which theological belief on the part of the writers is correct (revealed) and which is a product of their cultural ignorance (un-revealed, but inherited from earlier misconceptions). Most confusingly, Lamoureux argues (as I have) that both an inaccurate theological picture being taught and a new, revealed theological truth may occur within the same passage! For all we know, the “Message of Faith” in Romans 5.12ff might well have been (as it has appeared to believers throughout Church history) that Christ’s work was necessitated because of an historical Fall, except that this understanding has now been debunked by science. How many other things do we currently believe are Messages of Faith that simply haven’t had enough light shed on them? And what good is saying that God hid an infallible message in there somewhere when it’s impossible to verify which is accurate and which is not? It appears that, while rejecting historical/scientific concord, Lamoureux is engaging in some special pleading for theological concord, especially given that he himself debunks some theology contained in Scripture. It seems that he’s saying, “Everything that is true in the Bible is true, and nothing that isn’t,” in a way palatable to folks clinging to the old “inerrant and infallible” standard we were taught to uphold.

It is attractive to think that lurking behind most every passage is a “Message of Faith” divinely deposited for us, but here I think even the good old audience relevance principle precludes us as direct recipients of those messages. So in the end, calling the Bible the “incarnational Word of God” is no more helpful than simply saying, as McManus puts its, that “the Bible exists because God encountered people — encountered not in the Bible but out here in the real world — and some of these people lived to tell about it,” and that sometimes their insights are dead on. But sometimes, not so much.

This thinking is fledgling, but I’m finding it useful for understanding what I have gathered. If it sounds too extreme, keep in mind that I am still holding this tentatively enough to be talked out of it! I can’t think of a better way of posing it than McManus did: “What exactly do we lose if we consider the Bible to be exactly what it is, only human literature?” And in all candor, I’m not particularly interested in the standard evangelical appeal to consequence, “Well, this must be false because otherwise we don’t know what’s crap and what’s divine.” Apart from that, what are your thoughts?